Name: Jacob Combs
Breakthrough Program: Summerbridge San Francisco
Subject Teaching: English
School Attending/Year: Brown 2011

Here at Summerbridge San Francisco, our final week of classes is here. Though it won’t come as a surprise to anyone, it is remarkable to look back at the weeks that have gone by and wonder how they flew so fast. Almost all of our classes right now are focused on getting final projects and exams out of the way, but as one of my site’s Celebration Co-Chairs, I’m already thinking ahead to next Wednesday and how we can make our summer’s culminating event both fun and moving. I have a feeling we won’t actually have to work that hard to make it either of those things.

But we do have to work hard to make it happen. A big part of teaching is just plain tenacity, and we’ve had to stay strong throughout the last week or so, encouraging our fellow teachers to think ahead to the final week and start planning their performances for Celebration. We’re going to have an amazing show with a lot of talent in it, and acts ranging from singing and dancing to Latin poetry, drill team, and even puppetry. But it means that in the craziness of finals and making sure our academic classes wrap up smoothly, we also have to be looking ahead to the next big task.

On a bit of a different note, I’ve realized that one of the saddest elements of working in a six-week summer program is that almost as soon as you’ve gone through the experience of meeting students, learning who they are, and letting them learn who you are, it’s time to say goodbye. It really hit home for me this week when one of my students who is pretty shy (and who, to be honest, I wasn’t sure liked me all that much) asked if I was coming back next year. When I told her that this was the last summer I could teach as part of Breakthrough, she said, “No, you have to come back!”

And the truth, I guess, is that it’s really impossible right now to know the effect that we’re having on the students that we’re working with. Middle school is an infamously difficult time (I try not to think back to my own early teen years as much as possible), and the kids’ priority certainly isn’t showing us how much they like us. But there are those moments where that connection really comes through, where you both acknowledge that, despite the tough homework assignments and the occasional class rowdiness, this summer has changed both of you for the better.